Labels: brick, LEGO

 

Labels: Martin Luther King Jr.

With its funding of renewable energy and early-warning systems for drought and infectious diseases, Google.org is innovating in and disrupting the world of corporate philanthropy just like Google did by turning online ads into big business, pushing desktop data into the internet cloud, and jumping into the mobile and wireless spectrum industries.

But when it comes to philanthropy, rivals probably won't complain when Google steps on their toes.

Google.org on Thursday announced that it would spend more than $25m (£13m) in new grants and investments for projects such as predicting and preventing infectious disease outbreaks, like Sars; monitoring climate changes in ecosystems in Africa and the Amazon; helping governments in under-served countries improve their public services; and funding small businesses in developing regions.

Full article: zdnet.co.uk 

Labels: ads, climate, energy, philanthropy, project

WASHINGTON--Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt on Thursday suggested NASA could learn a few things from his company.

Speaking at a luncheon series to commemorate the agency's 50th anniversary this year, Schmidt urged the space agency to take after what Google attempts to accomplish with its products: Build open, collaborative systems, not closed ones--a reference to NASA's legacy of creating mission-specific vehicles. Create simple platforms upon which others can build. And while you're at it, why not let spacecraft talk to each other?

"Isn't it obvious that spacecraft should have Internet on them, too?" Schmidt asked an audience of about 100 NASA officials, contractors, and Capitol Hill staffers, with the U.S. Capitol building barely visible in the snowy scene through the floor-to-ceiling glass panes behind him.

Full story: news.com 

Labels: Eric Schmidt, NASA, space

Rumors circulating on chat boards last month suggested that Google -- looking to make a big push into the wireless business -- could make a bid for Kirkland-based Clearwire. Nothing really came of the chatter.


But today the two companies announced a partnership by which Clearwire will distribute some Google applications -- including Gmail and Google Calendar -- to its customers.

Read more: seattlepi.com 

Labels: calendar, Clearwire, Gmail, partnership, wireless

Boston (dbTechno) - Google announced on Monday that they are doing a major upgrade to their Web services offered to Apple iPhone users, just one day before the big Macworld keynote speech by Apple’s Steve Jobs.

Google stated on Monday that they are releasing improvements to the entire interface of the iPhone, which should upgrade it quite a bit and give it features it never had before. Google stated that the enhancements to the user interface are to allow for better response to touch-screen input.

Read more: dbtechno.com 

Labels: iGoogle, iPhone, Macworld, mobile, phone

Spotted by Google Operating System is a new iPhone specific interface for Google’s personalized webpage product iGoogle. The page can accessed directly from http://google.com/ig/i, although iPhone users should be immediately redirected to this page when trying to access iGoogle.

The new iPhone interface is a step up from Google’s previous offering of a mobile specific page at google.com/m which only offered limited customization options.

Read more: techcrunch.com 

Labels: iGoogle, iPhone, mobile, phone

Google's Android developer kit for mobile phones has been successfully installed on several hardware devices, a step toward turning it into a genuine mobile-phone platform.

The Android Software Developer Kit (SDK), first released in November, has been developed by Google and others as part of the Open Handset Alliance with the goal of spurring innovation in the mobile space. The platform, based on the Linux 2.6 kernel, will comprise an operating system, middleware stack, customisable user interface and applications.

Google released the preview version of Android without support for actual hardware - instead, developers were given a software emulator based on Qemu. However, running the software on actual hardware can give developers a more accurate idea of how their applications will run.

Read more: techworld.com 

Labels: Android, Google Phone, Gphone, hardware, mobile, phone

Want to know what the weather is like right now somewhere else? Today, you can just click around on a radar-enabled Google map to quickly get the lowdown on temperature, humidity, wind conditions, and a lot more.

When you're heading out of town, you're interested in what kind of weather to expect when you get there, right? Well, starting today, answering questions like that is as easy as clicking on a Google map, due to a new "mapplet" rolled out by The Weather Channel Interactive, Inc. (TWCI).

Essentially, Google's map site now has a new weather data layer which is powered by The Weather Channel's HiRAD, a patented technology combining information from Doppler radar, satellite transmissions, computer models, climate profiles, and lightning strike detection systems.

Full article: betanews.com 

Labels: mapping, Mapplets, Maps, radar, weather

gOS is a new operating system based on Ubuntu. It uses the Enlightenment 17 window manager instead of the usual GNOME or KDE desktops, allowing for lower memory and speed requirements. Due to the fact it leans heavy on on-line applications built on Web 2.0 and AJAX technology it also does not use much hard disk space for applications, the whole system fits comfortably in less than 2 GB of hard disk space. Also many of the documents created with gOS, such as Google Docs documents, can be saved on Google servers instead of on the local hard disk, so gOS can work with very small harddisks. In this respect a gOS PC has many similarities with a Thin client.

gOS primary features include the usage of a Mac-like Dock featuring icons linking to the following various google applications and built in off line applications:

Firefox Webbrowser, Google Mail, Google News, Google Calendar, Google Maps, Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Froogle, the Blogger YouTube and Facebook online communities as well as Meebo to online chat with a.o. Yahoo! Messenger and Windows Live Messenger users, Rhythmbox (ITunes like program for music and radio), Skype, Wikipedia, and the Xine media player. Other programs can be added to the Dock as well.

gOS also supports mini applications that run on the desktop, of which one is the clock.

Download: gOS 2.0.0 Beta 1 

Labels: beta, gOS, Linux, live, Open Source

Google Desktop gives you easy access to information on your computer and from the web. It's a desktop search application that provides full text search over your email, computer files, music, photos, chats and web pages that you've viewed. By making your computer searchable, Google Desktop puts your information easily within your reach and frees you from having to manually organize your files, emails and bookmarks. It makes searching your computer as easy as searching the web with Google.

Google Desktop doesn't just help you search your computer; it also helps you gather new information from the web with Sidebar, a new desktop feature that shows you your new email, weather and stock information, personalized news and RSS/Atom feeds, and more. Sidebar is personalized automatically, without any manual configuration required (though you can certainly make your own customizations if you want to).

We've also improved your desktop search experience. With Quick Find, you can now launch applications and see search results as you type without even opening a browser. We've also extended our Outlook integration, so you can search Google Desktop with the Outlook Toolbar and see results within Outlook itself. Finally, you can search even more stuff, including your Gmail, files on network drives, many Outlook data types (including Contacts, Tasks, Calendar, Notes and Journal) and MSN Messenger chats. And if you yearn for even stronger security, you can encrypt your entire index.

Improved Sidebar and Google Gadgets. Add Google Gadgets to customize your desktop and Sidebar, Developers: Create and share your own gadgets.

Requires Windows Windows 2000 SP3+/XP/Vista

Download: Google Desktop 5.7.801.1629 | Gadgets 

Labels: computer, Desktop, Gadgets, search, Vista

Happy New Year & 25 Years of TCP/IP 

Labels: New Year